Solitaire
by Countess Verona Dracula
Summary: (One-shot SLASH CarlVanHelsing) Carl won't stop bugging Van Helsing durin g his card game. My first slash! PG for the pairing, since it's entirely fluff!


A/N-- Well, here's my not-so-triumphant return to Van Helsing fanfiction.... I actually wrote this a month ago while working on _Ripples in Time_ but debated on posting it. There doesn't seem to be a large slash community here, compared to like Pirates of the Caribbean, but I love the pairing. I don't know about anyone else, since I don't see many of these stories.   
  
This is my first slash fanfiction and its nothing but fluffy nonsense set after the movie... please go easy on it?

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**Solitaire**  
  
The scenery flashed by eagerly as the coach picked up speed. Gabriel Van Helsing watched it absent-mindedly from under the brim of his hat. It was a bit of a novelty to be riding in a coach he wasn't driving himself, but he was planning on picking up horses at the rendezvous point and Carl had insisted that for once they relax and pay a coach. Since the Friar was 'not a field man,' Van Helsing had humored him.   
  
Despite his constant insisting that he was not suited for Van Helsing's line of work, Carl had been happy to tag along on this mission. At the moment, he was very busy acclimating to the roughness of this mode of travel. Smiling, Van Helsing took a very worn pack of cards out of his pocket and began to shuffle them.   
  
"What are you doing?" asked an inquisitive voice. Van Helsing raised his eyes to meet Carl's.   
  
"I'm shuffling the cards so I can play solitaire." He replied.   
  
"Why?" Carl pressed.   
  
"Because I'm bored." Van Helsing shrugged, beginning to lay the cards in neat stacks on the coat he had spread across his lap.   
  
"You know, there's this amazing new invention that cures boredom, and all you need is another person." Carl smirked dryly.   
  
"Really, what is it?" Van Helsing asked with interest.   
  
"It's called conversation." The Friar beamed, seemingly very pleased with himself.   
  
"Oh really? How's it work?" asked the other with intrigue.   
  
"It's quite simple. You and I are having a conversation right now." He said plainly.   
  
"Wait, me having a conversation with you?" Van Helsing shuddered. "Never."   
  
"Oh fine then!" Carl sniffed, pulling his cowl around his face. In minutes, he was asleep.  
  
Once the Friar began to snore gently, Van Helsing looked up from his game and smiled. Carl was capable of sleeping anytime, anywhere, (although his favorite place was Van Helsing's shoulder, where it was doubly easy to fall asleep) but it was a talent he rarely used. He worked day and night on his inventions. Or, if he wasn't there, he was praying. Or pacing around, muttering to himself, and jotting notes. Even Van Helsing, who was on the road or battling evil almost round the clock, didn't know how he did it. He wasn't sure if he slept at all beyond the times when Van Helsing pried him off his inventions and pulled him by his hood to their bed for some warmth and rest.  
  
His smile continued as he returned to his card game. It had been two years since the Transylvania assignment, or disaster as it was sometimes known. This much he knew, but he could never figure out how long he and Carl had loved each other in secret. It seemed like that was how it always had been, that his bed had always been theirs. That was how _right_ it felt. Maybe the feelings had always been there, and it had taken Anna's warmth and then the pain of her loss to shake the ice off his heart and get him to realize it. He wasn't sure. Long ago, he had stopped trying to figure when it had happened, what event had finally brought them together.  
  
He may have kissed Carl many times, but you still don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

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By the time Carl woke up again, Gabriel was on his third game of solitaire. The Friar sat up quite suddenly, startled by a bump in the road that sent Van Helsing's cards and hat scattering. Mumbling, he bent to retrieve them. Upon straightening, he saw that the Friar was awake.  
  
"'s all right Carl, just a bump in the road." He said reassuringly, reshuffling the cards. Carl nodded and yawned, but didn't seem about to return to sleep. Just as Van Helsing began to settle himself into the lull of the journey and his card game once more, Carl spoke up.  
  
"I'm bored." He stated plainly, resting his chin in his cupped hands.  
  
"Well there's one good thing about where we are." Van Helsing replied as Carl came to sit beside him.  
  
"What?" He asked.  
  
"There are no dangerous or unstable chemicals about for you to alleviate your boredom with." He grinned.  
  
"I beg your pardon Mr. Van Helsing! Some of my most brilliant inventions came about when I was sitting around bored, experimenting with dangerous and/or unstable chemicals!" Carl cried indignantly, straightening.  
  
"Yes, and some of your most interesting haircuts too!" The other snorted, tossing his hat off and onto the seat opposite of them so they could better see each other.  
  
"Shut up!" Carl snapped, crossing his arms. Sometimes he was just too easy to rile...  
  
"Says he who earlier was begging for conversation!" Van Helsing laughed.  
  
"You're an insufferable, unmanageable, insatiable, flippant, cynical, ambiguous..." Carl trailed off, as if momentarily out of big words that described Van Helsing, then picked up with renewed fury. "And all together very irritating man!" Van Helsing laughed low in his throat, leaned over, and kissed the very tip of Carl's nose.  
  
""And you're actually very cute until you open your mouth." He whispered before returning to his game of solitaire. Carl was instantly perky again.  
  
"Then why don't you shut it for me?" He asked with a grin caught somewhere between sheepish and wicked.  
  
"Because I'm trying to teach you a valuable life lesson: how to keep your mouth shut on your own." The Hunter grinned, not looking up. Now, this statement had Carl utterly bewildered. Whenever they said something to each other involving shutting each other's mouths, it was usually their code for kissing. What did he mean by 'how to keep your mouth shut on your own?'  
  
"You're trying to teach me how to kiss myself?" asked a bewildered Carl. At that point, Van Helsing could do nothing but throw his head back and laugh. Not caring that his cards would be scattered on the floor again, he moved over to Carl and pulled him close, kissing him warmly on the lips. Just as the slighter man began to melt against him and kiss him back, he drew back but left his forehead leaned against the other's. His fingers combed lovingly through Carl's hair.  
  
"You should know that I wouldn't let anyone but me do that." He chuckled, moving away to pick up his cards once more. Smiling, Carl settled for watching him again. For a few minutes at least.  
  
But who can stay quiet that long, especially when talking garners you a chance at being kissed?  
  
(Privately, there were times when Carl wondered if that was the only reason Van Helsing kissed him at all: as an extreme measure of shutting him up.)  
  
"Do you like playing solitaire?" He asked.  
  
"It passes the time." Van Helsing said plainly, not looking up. "It's easy to learn, and you don't need someone to play it with." He paused, but Carl sensed that more was coming. "It's easier to learn how to be alone. Learning how to be together with someone is much harder. Everything has to be coordinated, there must be mutual understandings both spoken and unspoken..." He sighed. He had been forced to cheat, peeking at the last hidden card, to finish the game. "It takes a long time to learn. Solitaire is one of the few things I do alone anymore."  
  
"Is that good or bad?" Carl asked timidly.  
  
"Sometimes I need to be alone. Sometimes, it hurts more than anything in the world." He replied, collecting the cards.  
  
"Well, there's something about you that's normal. _Everybody_ feels like that _sometimes_." Carl grinned cheekily. 

"It... can be a lot of times. The hurting part." Van Helsing said slowly and quietly. Carl lay his head softly on Van Helsing's shoulder. The meaning in this gesture was unspoken, but understood. _You don't have to be alone anymore..._  
  
"Let me teach you how to play." Van Helsing smiled with quiet humor, knowing full well that before he finished Carl would be asleep again.  
  
Solitaire wasn't a game for two anyway.

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A/N- Okay so it was a little cheesy and maybe even OOC!!! Review anyways! And don't flame! 


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